The season of Lent, the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter is just around the corner! This year Lent begins on Wednesday, February 14. So for the next 40 days (starting February 14th) I will ...

“If the Lord had not been for us”…Psalm 124 Yesterday, as I pondered by these words, my mind retraced the many times God has literally saved my life. A home break-in. A mountain climbing slip. Running blind in the dark. ...

Yesterday I chatted with a lady new to our church. She commented that when she was on the leadership team at her previous church, it was difficult to continually “stay strong,” to always “have it all together,” and to always ...

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 I didn’t recognize my own symptoms. After three weeks of summer travel and a jam-packed schedule I finally had a morning home ...

Today, known as Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter. I was raised in a home that had no religious underpinnings and in our own church tradition we have not routinely embraced observance of the Church calendar. For some of us, this may be ...

“‎You’re not the same as you were before,” said the Mad Hatter. You were much more… muchier… you’ve lost your muchness.” “My muchness?” Alice asked. “In there,” he said, pointing to her heart. “Something is missing.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, muchness means “the quality or state of being in great quantity, extent, or degree.” The Mad ...

I am meeting someone for coffee. I have never met her or perhaps I don’t know her well. At some point earlier, however, she asked, “Can we go for coffee?” Every week (several times a week) I have the privilege of sitting at this table. Each person comes with her own story of brokenness. Brokenness ...

The season of Lent, the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter is just around the corner! This year Lent begins on Wednesday, February 14. So for the next 40 days (starting February 14th) I will be posting a weekly blog post centering around the season of Lent. Throughout the Scriptures ...

After a four-year semi-hiatus from the gym in order to pursue my doctoral degree, along with four gazillion other people in January, I returned to the gym. I knew going back would be difficult. It was worse had than I had imagined. I was out of breath, sweating, my were muscles shaking…and that was only ...

Today I spoke on simplicity at our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group. Living freely and lightly is not as easy as it sounds. Here are the highlights: There is a story about a spiritual seeker who wanted to spend a few days in a monastery. ‘I hope your stay is a blessed one,’ said the monk ...

The story of our lives has more to do with what God is doing than our ability to manage it. Gail Johnsen This is my all-time favorite quote about Christmas: “God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, to conceive something. We cannot manage it. We can’t even understand it. All we ...

Christmas is the most wonderful, awful time of the year. Often we have created an image of Christmas that centers around a perfectly pinterest-decorated home, candlelight, neatly (or extravagantly) wrapped presents, and intact families cozied by the fire reading Christmas stories and eating cookies. Not that this is bad. It’s just not reality for many ...

For centuries, Christians made space in their crowded hearts at Christmas through participating in a daily devotion called Advent. The word “Advent” means “coming.” The season of Advent refers to the four-week period leading up to Christmas Day. Jesus’ coming was not just a one-time event as a child so long ago, but his coming ...

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Keeping Company With Jesus

Have you ever said to yourself, “There’s got to be more to life than this!

Keeping Company with Jesus is a 9-month weekly, interactive, on-line resource/spiritual formation tool, which includes a reading, reflection questions and a spiritual practice. Designed to be interactive, it is best done in community and dialogue with others. So it’s perfect for groups. The 9-month Journey helps us to learn to keep company with Jesus in such a way that the abundant life Jesus promised becomes a reality in our lives.

We all want authentic, vibrant faith, but it doesn’t happen by chance. This will help.